Sunday, January 13, 2013

Review and Giveaway: Pick and Draw

Edit: This contest has ended! Congratulations to Danielle, who will be receiving her prize shortly!

Have you
heard of Pick and Draw? I hadn’t, until someone on my blogroll posted about it,
recommending that art teachers pick it up for their classroom. Curious, I
ordered it, and at the same time, asked the creator if he could ship me an
additional copy to give away to one of my readers. He kindly obliged (see below!) and I
eagerly awaited my shipment, secretly hoping that I would love the game enough to
necessitate the giveaway (spoiler alert - I did.)

Here’s a
basic breakdown: Pick and draw is kind of half card game, half drawing game, that’s
surprisingly useful in an art classroom. The deck is color coded into 5
categories - face, hair, eyes, nose, and mouth. Either the game facilitator, or
the artist themselves, draws one card per category, one at a time. The card displays
a feature, which the artist then has to copy onto their paper. The creative
part comes in in their interpretation of the feature. A pair of eyes can look
very different if drawn close together, far apart, huge, small, etc. You work through
the features, one at a time, until you end up with a cartoony face that you can
then color in. (Is this explanation making sense? If not, you can actually test
out the game here: http://pickanddraw.com/how/)

I used this
game a LOT the first week of school. I would use our ladybug document projector
to show the cards one at a time, as students would draw. It was insane to see
the difference between the drawings. I teach classes of up to 30 kids, and
there was seriously no two drawings alike. It seemed to be particularly
enjoyable for the students because they all came out of their first art class with
something they were really proud of. In the 40 minute period, there was enough
time for each kid to make two different drawings, then pick the one they like
best and start coloring it. I honestly can’t say enough how great it was that
first week.

Here’s an example of two drawings done by different students,
before they had begun coloring. They eventually added necks and shoulders, so
that they weren’t just floating heads.

(these are just terrible photos.. I wish I could go back to September and force myself to use my real camera while taking these, instead of my iPhone.)

Honestly, it’s
a great product – it served it’s purpose for me, but also would be great during
the year, especially to leave with a supply teacher. Totally worth my $10. Which leads me to...

So here’s the
fun part – I have a copy of Pick and Draw to give away to one of my readers! There are
a couple of ways to enter. Start by following my blog (so that I will know how
to contact you!) and then:

For one entry: In a comment,
post a link to an online art lesson/picture/website/resource that you
love! If you aren’t into art lessons, just post a comment to say hello!

For a second entry: post a
link to this giveaway on your blog, twitter, facebook, etc., then come
back and post a link in a separate comment,.

This
giveaway is open to anyone in Canada and the United States. The approximate value
of this giveaway is around $10 (but can you really put a price on a
great art activities?) The giveaway will run from now until Thursday, January 17th
at 8:00pm, when I will randomly select a winner using a random number
generator. The winner will be contacted, and I will mail you your goodies
shortly thereafter!

I love your blog. I started following when my daughter went off to public school kindergarten and I realized she was getting very little chance to do art. Your blog has been great resource for me when we do our own art projects at home!

That is an awesome game! I do something similar with nouns and adjectives that I have written on paper and have the students pull out from a bag to make the crazy faces. This is so much better and professional! haha

A resource that I recommend is either the book "Ish" or "The Dot" by Peter Reynolds. They are simple picture books about student creativity and about "making your mark". They are seriously great and the kids really make a personal connection with the characters and the moral of the stories.